loading a picture into the background

[rogersam]

ok, s i am making a game for my qbasic class, and i want to know how to load a picture into qbasic, and display it..... so i can use it like a background for a menu, etc. any suggestions?

[TheBigBasicQ]

well, you can use a bitmap loader. But they are slow and there are complications like insufficient colors and stuff. Which screen do you want to use? Screen 12 has only 16 colors. So you can load a 16 color BMP. If you're planning to use Screen 13 which has 256 colors. But then you have to compromise on the resolution. You can also use a BMP to BSAVE converter. BSAVE is the default format used by QB to save graphics to files. They load much faster than BMPs.